Can We Sink Any Lower?

/ greenpete58 / 10 Comments

I usually don’t post so quickly after a previous post, but things are downgrading so alarmingly with this sick, fascist regime in Washington, I feel compelled to share Paul Krugman‘s recent article. Plus, I’m heading to the mountains for 10 days to try to wash some of this madness from my head.

(Note: Krugman is a former New York Times columnist and Nobel Prize-winning economist.)

Trump’s Easter Sunday words (and, frankly, any words of his) are appalling enough. But there are real actions behind them, with real and appalling consequences. This is what happens when irresponsible voters choose irresponsible leaders.

See you in a few. If I have the stomach to return.

***

The Terrorist in Chief

It’s time for us to face up to the ugly reality

By Paul Krugman

06 April 2026

Terrorism, according to ICE — yes, that ICE — “involves violence or the threat of violence against people or property to further a particular ideology.” The official website goes on to declare that “Terrorists do not care who they hurt or kill to achieve their goals.”

If you haven’t read Donald Trump’s Truth Social post from Sunday, above, take a minute to do so. Don’t rely on sanewashed descriptions in the media. And then tell me that Trump doesn’t perfectly fit his own officials’ definition of a terrorist.

Don’t tell me that his cause is just, that the Iranian regime is evil. That’s what terrorists always say, and even if it’s sometimes true, terrorism is defined by its means rather than its ends — by its attempt to achieve political goals by violently attacking the innocent.

And that’s exactly what Trump is doing: he’s threatening to attack civilian infrastructure if he doesn’t get his way. And since Trump is talking about targeting essential services — power plants! — this is a threatened attack on people as well as property.

Later on Sunday Trump told Axios that the U.S. is in “deep negotiations” with Iran. Forgive me for doubting that anything like that is happening. But he went on to say that if there isn’t a deal by Tuesday, “I am blowing up everything over there.”

He has issued these threats without even a pretense that we will be attacking military targets, and if anything he seems to relish rather than regret the death and suffering his actions will cause.

On second thought, however, I shouldn’t say that Trump is making a threat of violence; he’s promising violence. That vile post isn’t part of a negotiating strategy, since there is, after all, zero chance that Iran will open the Strait of Hormuz by tomorrow evening. The Iranian regime almost certainly couldn’t open the strait on short notice if it tried: Military control in Iran has, by all accounts, been decentralized to local commanders to limit the effects of U.S. and Israeli decapitation strikes. So there’s no way people in Tehran could order the whole Iranian military to stand down at short notice even if they wanted to.

And of course they don’t want to, because they think Iran is winning. And so do Trump and the people around him, even though they will never admit it.

For terrorism is a strategy of the weak. It’s what extremists do when they lack the ability to achieve their goals through military action or other non-criminal means.

And that’s where Trump and his officials find themselves. They inherited a powerful military (which they are rapidly degrading), but for all its firepower this military lacks the wherewithal to open the Strait of Hormuz to normal traffic. So the Trumpists are gearing up to impose suffering and death on innocent civilians instead, even though this suffering and death will do nothing to achieve America’s objectives.

I don’t know what Trump will do when his deadline passes and the Strait is still closed. He probably doesn’t know either. But he is promising to commit war crimes on a massive scale. And the duty of everyone with any influence who isn’t part of Trump’s inner circle is to do all they can to stop him.

Most immediately, military officers should be aware that they have the right and the duty to disobey illegal orders. It’s incredible that we have gotten to this point, especially so quickly, but here we are. You may recall that Admiral Alvin Holsey resigned in December, reportedly because he refused to be a party to illegal attacks on supposed drug boats. What Trump is now saying he will do is infinitely worse. And a refusal by senior officers to participate in war crimes may be the only thing that could stop this evil in its tracks.

Now is when we find out how completely our once honorable military has been corrupted.

Beyond the military, every politician, dare I say every public figure, in America should make it clear that Trump is not acting in their name.

This is not a time for Republicans who know — and most of them do know — that Trump has gone completely off the rails to remain obsequious for fear that he might endorse their primary opponents. One hopes that there are still a few genuine patriots left on that side of the aisle.

It is also not a time for Democrats to listen to strategists who urge them to stay silent on foreign policy and talk only about grocery prices. As it happens, that’s even bad political advice: Public disdain for Congressional Democrats has a lot to do with perceptions that they are weak and ineffectual, and ignoring Trump’s criminal madness will only reinforce that perception. And there has been no rally-around-the-flag effect from this war, which is growing more unpopular by the day.

But in any case, political considerations should take a back seat to civic duty.

The horrible but undeniable fact right now is that America has a terrorist president. And the whole world knows it. But we still have a chance to show the world that he is an aberration, that we are not a terrorist nation. And we can do that by standing up for the values that have always defined us.

Who Are the Brain Police?

/ greenpete58 / 13 Comments

Sitting at home after the recent No Kings Day protests, I clicked on a local news website to review its story. (My degree was journalism, so I’m always curious about press coverage.)

The story seemed reasonable. An unbiased “just the facts, ma’am.” But at the bottom was an obligatory readers’ comments section. Of the three comments, one of them mocked us protesters and made an incredible and disturbing claim that “our president” is doing “an amazing job.”

He’s doing a “job,” alright. But the really upsetting thing was, this shockingly unenlightened comment received only six dislikes…and got 19 likes.

Once again, I asked myself, “Who are these people? Can they be for real?” 

Trump and his Republican shoeshiners didn’t land here on a spaceship. They were elected: by our friends, neighbors, relatives, coworkers. After all, back in 2016 and 2024, America was still a sort-of representative democracy. The people in power are us. That’s exactly what the Founding Fathers both intended, and feared.

So how could the population’s collective brain become so poisoned? There are many reasons, and folks on the left and in the middle aren’t blameless. But since 2016 it’s apparent to me that certain mentalities are more easily drawn to snake oil salesmen than others. And at the risk of emulating our elected schoolyard bully by being insulting, I’ve separated into three groups the fascism side of the ideological war that now consumes us.

If the economy completely collapses (and if our latest insane war goes on too long, it probably will), two of these three groups of lost souls could conceivably turn away from Trumpism and become un-lost. (The third group is permanently damaged and beyond hope.)

  1. Thugs. These are the racists, anti-Semites, homophobes, misogynists, and xenophobes. They’re the most physically dangerous. Alt-right territory, mainly male, whom Trump regularly courts, a few of whom I unfriended back when I still did Facebook. Sadly, they’ve always been with us. The good news is, some have actually been known to deep-six their bigotry and salvage their hearts, so there’s hope a few could, one day, vote Democrat or Libertarian or Whig. Or, at minimum, stay home on election day and polish their gun barrels.

  1. Wealth Worshippers. Monetary wealth determines the ever-fickle rules of the game, especially in America, which worships money and those able to amass lots of it. These are Trump’s billionaire, millionaire, and upper-middle-class followers who feel a 2nd-generation Wall Street billionaire will best protect their bank balances, businesses, tax loopholes, and stock investments. “Vote your wallet” people. They’ve been converted to the “pull up your bootstraps” philosophy, without considering that some poor slobs have no boots with straps to even pull up. But when the economy collapses – which usually happens after lengthy Republican rule – they often vote Democrat. Or they stay at home on election day and mull over Dow Jones.

  1. Conservative Christians. Jesus and partisan politics have always made for strange bedfellows, but in the U.S., evangelicals have tied poor Jesus to the bedpost. Christians come in all varieties, but this category means fanatics for whom the Holy Bible rules everything. Many of them would rejoice to see our elected war and sex criminal make Christianity an official national religion. In their world, homosexuality is either sinful or a social disease or a character flaw (one Christian-based family therapist I knew actually said being gay – being a persecuted minority – is a “lifestyle choice”); Charles Darwin was “an idiot” (actual words from someone I know); and most importantly, abortions are “murder” (although the Bible never discusses fetuses) and governments need to outlaw them, even as a last resort, even if the mother was the victim of rape or incest, even if her own health or life might be in jeopardy. They’ve gleefully donated their brains to the political church. Brain deposit? Ching. Returns? Forget it. When the economy collapses, I don’t foresee this group turning from Trumpism unless antichrist Trump appoints justices to reinstate Roe v. Wade, which can’t and won’t happen. (And, please, if any Christian tries to argue abortion, religion, or drop Bible verses on me, I’ll immediately delete your comment.)

For the record, I don’t hate the people in these groups. What I hate are their values (or lack thereof). It’s hard not to be struck by the sick humor of a moral reprobate like Trump courting the religious right, and those delusionals lining up to kiss his feet (and pray with him, while Trump, undoubtedly, inwardly laughs).

But the above is a generalization of my perception of the most egregious Trumpists. There are benign or non-political voters, both R and D, who cast ballots based only on what’s fashionable within their respective peer group. (My mom had scant understanding of the issues but voted R because it was family tradition.) And I’m sure similar demographics exist in societies outside the U.S. 

What might distinguish America, however, is that – ever since the FCC abolished the Fairness Doctrine in 1987 – the U.S. has had a powerful and vicious conservative media that has relentlessly stoked these three groups’ pre-existing fears, bigotries, greed, and fanaticism. Recalling a Frank Zappa song, this incessant media drone encourages people to “police” and handcuff their own brains. Group-think at the expense of individual-think. It was inevitable that a fringe demagogue would, sooner or later, recognize opportunities for power and exploit minds that have been stewing, on slow boil, in dangerous propaganda for decades.

These budding demagogues have always been with us, too.

It’s okay to change your mind
Show us your courage
Leave this behind
It’s okay to change your mind
And you can join us
Join us anytime

– Annie Schlaefer, Singing Resistance

No Kings Day III, Cincinnati

/ greenpete58 / 7 Comments

WARNING: this post features an abundance of words that may be, shall we say, offensive to some. Read at your own discretion.

The third No Kings Day protests occurred Saturday, March 28. An estimated 8 million turned out nationwide, making it the largest mass protest in U.S. history. I attended two of them, in northern Kentucky, and across the bridge in Cincinnati, Ohio. (I’m the bloke with the “Disgusted” sign. And I’m not smiling, I’m grimacing.)

The milquetoast mainstream news networks gave the event some attention, which was nice, although they, as usual, felt compelled to include Trump’s by-now-expected snotty comeback (while golfing in Florida while his war of distraction drones on). Didn’t bother to subject myself to FOX News’s crypto-Nazi coverage.

I’ll just say that, two things have become apparent to me. First, at this unfathomable stage in this young republic’s history, the anger quotient is like nothing I’ve ever seen. (Just look at the signs.) In the ’60s, the anger was primarily generational. This is multi-generational. Second, if we ever wake from this fascist Trump-Republican nightmare, it will be women who have led the charge. 

While marching can shine a light and maybe embolden others, that’s really all it can do. It takes voting (and by electing these motherfuckers in 2024, we jeopardized even that basic right). Still, it was a huge psychological boost to be with so many people whose values reflect my own. We may still be a highly vocal minority in this massive nation – the midterms in November will be revealing – but the numbers are growing, and whatever happens, we’re not going to let democracy die, and human rights wither, without a fight.

But enough of my yakkin’. Enjoy these big beautiful photos:

“Tell me what democracy looks like!”

“This is what democracy looks like!”

Of Savages and Kings

/ greenpete58 / 11 Comments

Last article I wrote about the members of the White Rose and how they resisted Hitler and his National Socialist (Nazi) Party, courageously sacrificing their lives in the process.

This Saturday, March 28, many Americans will engage in a less life-threatening but no less desperate form of resistance. They will converge on U.S. streets en masse for a third “No Kings” (NK) protest. Millions are expected to participate (at least, those who haven’t been dragged without due process into concentration camps, now politely known as “detention centers”). My email inbox is overflowing with No Kings alerts.

A recent email emphatically stated: “Kings are not in our DNA!” (That’s correct; violence is in our DNA.) The NK website also claims that America does not belong to “greedy billionaires,” but to “us, the people!”

Now, there are a lot of smart, well-educated, well-intentioned, and hard-working people behind NK and other attempts to slay the vile Neanderthal wielding a club over the country, and world. And I give them a lot of credit for grabbing their slingshots.

But in the process there is some naivety and mythologizing. I’d like to discuss a couple of the myths.

King Felipe VI and Queen Letizia of Spain

First off, the nomenclature. I totally get the motivation for the name. The most evil president the country has ever seen has been permitted unprecedented executive power and has behaved like a drunk with a truckload of whiskey. He’s used the Constitution as toilet paper and raised his middle finger at the rule of law. And Republicans – for whom the idea of “Big Government” used to (supposedly) be anathema – seem perfectly fine with Trumpian-styled big government. (What Republicans truly dislike is when our government helps the less fortunate. Welfare for the wealthy and expensive wars, however, are acceptable.)

But there are constitutional monarchies throughout the world (U.K., Canada, Spain, Sweden, Belgium, etc.), with kings and queens in democratic countries, who are strictly ceremonial, and only marginally involved in state policy, and who aren’t fascist clowns like Trump.

But America, until now, has had limited experience with royalty. King George III and his redcoat goons and punitive taxes were a long time ago. Breaking news: not all kings and queens are tyrants.

I suggest No Tyrants Day as a more appropriate name for March 28. It’s a name which doesn’t insult those friends of ours that have benevolent kings and queens who don handsome sashes, epaulets, medals, and pins, instead of demagogues wearing ratty nationalistic baseball caps that were probably woven in China. Another might be “No Clowns Day.” But I’d hate to impugn circus clowns.

(I suggested a name change to NK organizers, but I’ve yet to hear back from them. Will keep you posted.)

King Frederik X of Denmark…and also Greenland

The concept of monarchy conveniently segues into another myth being perpetuated by the good folks behind No Kings: that America doesn’t belong to “greedy billionaires.” This is ludicrous.

We may wish the country wasn’t owned by the wealthy (just as we wish America could be a pure democracy). More breaking news: corporations and the wealthy have been running the country for a long, long time. We just had a billionaire business mogul purchase the presidency, not once, but twice. (His money has also kept him from prison.) The corporate elite influences our elections and laws, corrupts our political candidates, controls our media, oils our perpetual war machine, and tells Americans how and where they should spend their money. And it also sticks its nose into other countries’ business.

But I’m just a little guy, so I’ll let two others speak for me:

American corporations today are like the great European monarchies of yore: They have the power to control the rules under which they function and to direct the allocation of public resources. This is not a prediction of what’s to come; this is a simple statement of the present state of affairs. Corporations have effectively captured the United States: its judiciary, its political system, and its national wealth, without assuming any of the responsibilities of dominion – Robert Monks (R-Maine), 2012, from “The Corporate Capture of the United States,” published by Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance

America has only one party – the property party. It’s the party of big corporation, the party of money. It has two right wings; one is Democrat and the other is Republican…The genius of our ruling class is that it has kept a majority of the people from ever questioning the inequity of (the) system – Gore Vidal

[Aside: historical novelist and playwright Gore Vidal – for those unfamiliar with him – was of the old school, where books of substance were valued and an understanding of history was deemed important. (In other words, he was at odds with today’s society.) He was one of the smartest, wittiest, and most insightful Americans that ever lived, a fearless buster of U.S. myths, and a master of the witty aphorism.]

***

I’m certain the No Kings folks aren’t reading this. But I’m used to people not listening to me. I’m a parent.

And even if they are reading, myths are hard to shatter. Humans cling to them. If myths were easy to shatter, most religions would look very differently, and Americans would have immediately rejected those antiquated and bigoted notions that Trump now uses for his template: that all Indians are “savages” and all whites are civilized; that women aren’t smart enough to be allowed to vote let alone govern; and that African “expatriates” are only three-fifths of a person.

Even folks I otherwise agree with, like the hard-working young people at No Kings Day, behave as if George III died just yesterday, and America belongs to We the People.

Where are the Gore Vidals of today? We really need him.

The White Rose

/ greenpete58 / 9 Comments

Last November we returned to the U.S. after briefly living in Spain, and I promised myself I’d do what little I can to help “rescue” my beleaguered country. To that end, I’ve volunteered with several groups.

While protests, petitions, phone calls and donations are all good, the only true progress comes at the polls. But with Republicans now controlling all three branches of government, and most of them cowardly and slavishly crawling on their knees before an unethical authoritarian figure (to put it nicely) – and the Democratic Party more clueless than the Cleveland Browns during playoff season – even election fairness is in jeopardy. Not to mention, even with a fair election, American voters have proven they can’t be trusted to make intelligent decisions.

My consolation is that – whatever the fuck happens – at least my grandkids will know that their “stinky old man” actively fought against this American shitfest.

And I hate to keep harping on 1920s-40s Germany. Today (notwithstanding efforts by certain alt-right groups…cockroaches are indestructible), Germany is one of the most enlightened and liberal countries in the world.

But its history offers many lessons, and the parallels to America’s present plight are just too stark. And getting back to fighting the good fight…there was a group of volunteers in Germany in the 1940s who literally devoted their lives to ending Nazi-style fascism: the White Rose.

Contrary to many perceptions, there existed resistance movements within Germany during the height of Nazism. The Kreisau Circle, led by a lawyer and nobleman, Helmuth James Graf von Moltke, contained members with widely different political views but who all opposed Hitler and were “democratic, anti-racist, and internationalist” (Wikipedia).  The Red Orchestra (no association with Soviet red) was the name given to a network of resistance groups and individuals who tried to incite civil disobedience against the Nazis. And many already know about the failed insider plot to assassinate Hitler by army officer Claus von Stauffenberg and others.

But the most poignant anti-Hitler, anti-Nazi organization is die Weise Rose (the “White Rose”).

This was a group of approximately 50 young persons from Munich and Hamburg. The core members were five University of Munich (LMI Munich) students and one instructor: siblings Helmut and Sophie Scholl, Christoph Probst, Willi Graf, Alexander Schmorell, and professor Kurt Huber. They founded their resistance group on June 27, 1942 to denounce Hitler and the Nazis, using leaflets and grafitti to incite other Germans into resistance. They distributed six leaflets in total, the second of which (late 1942) condemned the mass murder of Jews.

Top: Hans Scholl, Sophie Scholl, Kurt Huber
Bottom: Christoph Probst, Alexander Schmorell, Willi Graf

Since the conquest of Poland, 300,000 Jews have been murdered in this country in the most bestial way…The German people slumber on in dull, stupid sleep and encourage the fascist criminals – from second White Rose leaflet

Thousands of copies of the leaflets were produced on hand-operated duplicating machines then distributed throughout German cities. Rather than targeting the working class, the group concentrated on the intelligentsia (which Hitler, of course, hated), whom it believed were more receptive to its message. They used quotes taken from Goethe, Aristotle, and the Bible, among other sources.

The White Rose lasted a mere eight months. On February 18, 1943, while the Scholls distributed leaflets at LMI Munich, a maintenance man alerted the Gestapo. Both brother and sister were arrested. Probst was later arrested. The threesome received a show trial – a Sondergericht – with Sophie, on numerous occasions, defiantly challenging judge Roland Freisler, a slavish Nazi. All three were quickly found guilty of treason, sentenced to death, and guillotined. Graf, Schmorell, and Huber were executed after a later trial, with Graf being tortured before his death. (He refused to name names.) At least 18 other White Rose members were later imprisoned.

The sixth and final White Rose pamphlet was smuggled outside Germany by Kreisau Circle leader von Moltke. It reached the attention of Winston Churchill, who reproduced thousands of them and had Allied planes drop them over Germany in the summer and fall of 1943.

Ultimately, the White Rose and other German resistance groups did not accomplish much. Propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels went into Big Lie overdrive, and too many Germans, by 1943, had been brainwashed by Nazi propaganda and hollow slogans like “make Germany great again.”

Roland Freisler. Over a period of three years, his People’s Court ordered over 5,000 executions

But today the White Rose is well-known and well-regarded amongst Germans. There are memorials to this courageous group throughout the country, as well as in Paris.

Not all remembrances are noble. In 2021, a repugnant conspiracy-theory group appropriated the name “White Rose” to distribute propaganda and lies about COVID-19. Their cloud-based, IM channel also spreads anti-Semitic propaganda and theories about New World Orders.

But I’ll close on a different note:

(The White Rose) is possibly the most spectacular moment of resistance that I can think of in the twentieth century…The fact that five little kids, in the mouth of the wolf, where it really counted, had the tremendous courage to do what they did, is spectacular to me. I know that the world is better for them having been there, but I do not know why – playwright and director Lillian Garrett-Groag, 1993

Here are links to U.S. pro-democracy groups I belong to (plus one environmental group) for anyone wishing to help defy the U.S. wolf:

https://front.moveon.org

https://indivisible.org

https://www.aclu.org

https://www.sierraclub.org

When the Circus Comes to Town

/ greenpete58 / 8 Comments

It’s hard to imagine now, but only 100 years ago there was no television, and moving pictures had no sound. Before things changed, America got its entertainment from the circus. Circuses were live variety shows that traveled around, set up tents in small towns, then tore them down and “hit the road” to pop up elsewhere.

Kids would fantasize about running away to join the circus. Many actually did so. Traveling circuses helped people escape from their daily drudgeries and were a fun,  wholesome diversion.

Every circus had its share of lion and tiger tamers, trapeze acrobats, clowns, freaks, strongmen, and barkers. The barker was the one who tried to coax passersby into buying tickets. Exaggeration was a crucial element in his colorful act. “Ladies and gentlemen, step right up! See the biggest, the most amazing…”

America loves entertainment, and is also really good at manufacturing it. We gave to the world Old West mythology, Hollywood, Mickey Mouse, Muhammed Ali, and rock ‘n’ roll. And periodically, when we get too grim, or too bored with our wealth, we need to entertain ourselves with, as Ed Sullivan used to say, “a really big shoo.” What I’m going to say now is undoubtedly controversial, but I’ll say it: in longitudes‘ opinion, it is one reason we plunge ourselves into wars every 10 or 20 years. In all seriousness, war is a distraction and great entertainment for the “folks back home.” For a while, anyway.

I kinda like it when a lotta people die – George Carlin

We also need to exercise our tremendous military muscle so our soldiers don’t get too flabby. And we need to engender patriotism amongst the citizenry when they start becoming too cynical. The news media is kept busy. Making lots of money for weapons manufacturers and military contractors and sub-contractors is also part of it.

The U.S. has evolved to where we now have catchy nicknames for our wars. Catchy nicknames make our wars seem more like video games and make it easier for the gullible public to swallow. We don’t have to think about the dead and maimed and traumatized. The latest catchy nickname is “Operation Epic Fury.” 

Watching the orchestrator of the latest “operation” with his Florida tan and silly “USA” baseball cap…vainly trying to look like mister average guy to appeal to his Billy-Bob base between his golf rounds at Mar-a-Lago, and announcing in his usual dumbed-down attempt to sound presidential, that America had just intervened in the Middle East…brought to my mind a circus barker. Also a freak and a clown. Of course, we’ve often seen this act before.

Anyway, watching Douchebag pat himself on the back after he just sent Americans into battle (he devoted all of three minutes to Iran during his marathon State of the Dis-Union rant), I found myself thinking how entertaining freaks and clowns and wars can be. And I suddenly found myself slipping into a somnolent daze. Before long, it was as if my mind was transported. It was like I was leaving my usual American reality-show nightmare state and slipping into a different reality show altogether, one whose background vaguely resembled circus tent fabric. Gina Lollobrigida and Cornel Wilde briefly flitted behind the back of…the back of…can it be…?

The barker’s nose suddenly morphed into a red rubber ball. He had swoops of orange hair protruding several inches from his stupid mock-patriotic ball cap. His scowl was exaggerated by red greasepaint. And he held a long baton in his hand, and jabbed it at a crowd that had gathered around him. To me he sounded like a really clumsy, unfunny stand-up comic. But the crowd seemed mesmerized by his rambling, high school-level and (to my mind, anyway) extremely arrogant speaking manner. 

Ladies and gentlemen…ladies and gentlemen…step right up to America’s latest attempt at regime change! Forget what I said earlier about me being the “peace president”! I’ve conveniently changed my mind! Enjoy now the thrills and spills of America’s highly technical, highly complex smart bombs! You’ll be gasping at the destruction we Judeo-Christians wreak on a Satanic nation of Muslims, I’ll tell ya…!

Half the bombs will strike military installations, half will strike government buildings, and half will strike mosques! (Only a few schools and day care centers will be hit.) Folks, these smart bombs are so smart they’re almost as smart as me, I tell ya…!

Pay no attention to the corpses of Iranian women and children! Pay no attention to the body bags containing U.S. servicemen and women who were forced to enlist because their parents couldn’t afford tuition at our disgustingly liberal universities! (I plan to censor images of those body bags, anyway, with help from those news networks I now control. And believe me, I know how to censor and control, lemme tell ya.) Pay no more attention to the Epstein files, or ICE brutality, or how three conservative justices betrayed me with that stupid tariff ruling…or my plummeting poll numbers! Forget the fact this is a war without a plan and that I again violated our Constitution by sidestepping Congress!

You’ll be thrilled and amazed at how I courageously killed an 86-year-old autocratic Muslim fanatic leader (with a few other incidental deaths) with help from my young, blessedly right-wing, Jewish friend here, by bombing the hell out of an entire Muslim country! Step right up, U.S. Judeo-Christians, and enjoy the Biblical Armageddon about to unfold! Our budding Christian theocracy is the only true theocracy!

Ladies and gents! Don’t listen to those awful atheist liberal Democrats who want to destroy me, and destroy America with higher education, gun control, public television, climate-change initiatives, civil liberties, and books! Yeah, I’m doing what those snowflake liberals Biden, Obama, and Bill and “Lock Her Up” Hillary should have done a long time ago, know what I mean? Speaking of ol’ Lock Her Up – and as an insurrectionist and convicted felon – I know something about politicians who should be locked up, lemme just tell ya!

And thank you, uh, single-issue conservative, uh, Bible thumpers, for continuing to support this Antichrist billionaire, tyrant, liar, adulterer, abortion flip-flopper, and pedophile, without condition! I’ll make it through that eye of a needle yet, yeah, know what I mean?

Step right up! The all-new, must-see reality show you will not want to miss!

My reverie ended with the melody of “We’ll Meet Again” from the entertaining Stanley Kubrick black comedy, Dr. Strangelove; or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.

Then it was back to that other nightmare reality show. The makeup was gone, but the barker was still a clown. And America was dropping bombs again.

Is America Truly Fascist or Am I Henny Penny?

/ greenpete58 / 9 Comments

The word fascism is bandied about a lot these black days, and not only on longitudes. But what exactly is fascism? And how can one recognize it?

Some history: the National Fascist Party began in Italy under Benito Mussolini (“Il Duce”) in 1922. It later was called the Republican Fascist Party. It dissolved at the end of WWII, for obvious reasons. The party was characterized by extreme conservatism, nationalism, totalitarianism, and corporate economics. Its proponents believed that men and women have separate, traditional roles, and homosexuality is a social disease. They were strongly Christian (Catholic flavor) and strongly anti-Semitic.

Conservatism, traditional roles, corporate economics, anti-gay, strongly Christian…some whiffs of similarity to the U.S. Republican Party, perhaps?

Since the Italian political party’s dissolution, fascism as a philosophy has persisted and surfaced in various countries around the world. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines fascism as this:

“A political philosophy, movement, or regime (as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition.”

Il Duce and The Douchebag. The arrogant poses are uncannily similar. Among other similarities.

But while all the above is certainly valid, when exactly does a country (like, for example, the United States) slip from liberal democracy and into fascism territory? Might longitudes and others be echoing Henny Penny (aka “Chicken Little”) with unfounded cries of “The sky is falling, the sky is falling!”?

A few essays ago I mentioned secular humanist Lawrence W. Britt‘s popular article “Fascism, Anyone?” It was published in Free Inquiry magazine soon after Bush-Cheney convinced a dazed, post-911 U.S. Congress to invade the country of Iraq with an infamous lie about “weapons of mass destruction.” Britt compared the regimes of seven leaders – Mussolini, Hitler, Franco (Spain), Salazar (Portugal), Papadopolous (Greece), Suharto (Indonesia) and Pinochet (Chile) – all right-wing conservative, like Trump – and discovered 14 areas of fascist commonality between all seven.

In bold below are the 14 areas of commonality between the seven…okay, I’ll quit the circumspection…eight:

  1. Powerful and continuing expressions of nationalism (MAGA, bombastic threats against Canada, Greenland, and other vulnerable countries/territories)
  2. Disdain for the importance of human rights (ICE terrorism, violations of due process, anti-LGBTQ rights)
  3. Identification of enemies/scapegoats as a unifying cause [hate speech, insults, unfounded accusations, and federal policies targeting practically every demographic other than white, male, heterosexual, conservative Americans (the largest voting bloc)]
  4. The supremacy of the military/avid militarism (unconstitutional Executive-branch acts of war, threats of invasions)
  5. Rampant sexism (“Grab her by the pussy”…for starters)
  6. A controlled mass media (authoritarian threats and pressures against FCC, ABC, CBS, Meta, Washington Post to silence critics, free speech violations, journalist arrests, lawsuits against any media outlet deemed a critic)
  7. Obsession with national security (rejection of international law)
  8. Religion and ruling elite tied together (White House prayer meetings, pedophile faith advisors)
  9. Power of corporations protected (Big Oil and coal industry mollycoddling…for starters)
  10. Power of labor suppressed or eliminated (ending collective bargaining rights of federal employees, gutting benefits for working families)
  11. Disdain and suppression of intellectuals and the arts (Kennedy Center and university takeovers by conservatives)
  12. Obsession with crime and punishment (executive orders criminalizing the homeless, National Guard deployment against non-violent protesters)
  13. Rampant cronyism and corruption (Epstein, Musk, Trump himself, Fiore, Santos, Bannon, Navarro, Trump himself, clemency to violent insurrectionists, Trump family crypto cash-ins…the list is endless)
  14. Fraudulent elections (???)

Unless one has been living in a Patagonian cave for the last 10 years, or regularly sniffing airplane glue, it is not hard to recognize how enthusiastically Donald Trump and his Republican Party have exhibited the above characteristics of fascism…so I won’t belabor examples far beyond what’s merely inside the parentheses. My stomach is tied in enough knots as it is.

In longitudes‘ opinion, America’s one last hope before the sky hits the ground with a thud might be point number 14. There is, as of yet…and as far as this blog is aware…no evidence of any serious election malfeasance in election years 2016 through  2024. But voter suppression by Republicans and claims of fraudulence? Is J.D. Vance an Ohio hillbilly?

America’s big problem, however, is the quality of its voters. Even America’s founders wrestled with the idea that a country’s democracy is only as good as the citizens which make up that democracy. Constitutions and laws are devised by humans, and they can easily be violated by humans. And, sadly, they have been.

Information, which the U.S. seems to regularly overdose on, does not equate with knowledge, the absence of which is like a sailor being deprived of vitamin C. And the U.S. now has its gums bleeding and its teeth falling out. Britt himself, at the end of his article – and somewhat sardonically – cited the importance of “a well-informed public constantly being put on guard against evils.” Americans, indeed, are well-informed. The trouble is, their info is derived from their own echo chambers. And the chamber on the right emits poisonous gas. (This isn’t to excuse the echo chamber on the left).

After Trump’s recent State of the Dis-Union address rant – which, by the way, I didn’t subject myself to – a Facebook friend of my wife’s posted something, in total seriousness, along the lines of Trump being an absolutely perfect leader. Perfect if you love fascism, maybe. Obviously, this airplane glue sniffer was hoping for a reaction. My wife gave it to him.

Facebook and other social mediums abound with such nonsense. Back in the pre-fascist, pre-internet days of newspaper letters to the editor – when people had to write, which required thinking – ideology-obsessed automotons like Trump cultists certainly existed, but they were relegated to the shadows. But the Old Guard is gone. Fascism doesn’t happen in a vacuum, it is cultivated and takes time to grow. The GOP’s decades-long move to the extreme right has produced the monstrous fruit we see now, and the onetime fringe is now the mainstream. Do humans have to periodically shit on themselves before they finally say “Oops”?

I guess so.

There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty – John Adams

Longitudes Goes Cruising (Again)

/ greenpete58 / 14 Comments

(I’ve been dwelling on U.S. politics lately, which does not encourage sound mental health. So I thought I’d give us all a break. Hope you enjoy this respite from German Nazis and U.S. crypto-Nazis.)

Longtime readers of longitudes know that I’ve written about some Caribbean cruises I’ve taken, the first occurring 14 years ago for my and my wife’s 25th wedding anniversary. You might recall that I have mixed feelings about these affairs.

I’ll preface this post by saying that society can be separated into two camps: those for whom cruises are the ideal vacation; and those who absolutely loathe them. As always, I belong to neither camp (which I guess means I don’t fit into society). More accurately, I have one foot in each camp. Cruises and I have a love/hate relationship.

My wife loves them without condition. She could probably live in a cruise ship cabin, despite not knowing the difference between port and starboard. She’s done 11 of them since 2012 and often tries to coax me to join her. I succumbed on six. (Probably four too many.) But I suffer from periodic bouts of situational depression, and in the past, cruises have helped take some of the sting off the “black-eyed dog,” if only for a tiny bit. Lately, I’ve been pretty depressed (see first paragraph). So, earlier this month, despite swearing it wouldn’t happen, I succumbed once again.

Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic

Here’s my take:

Food: cruise food and service are justly renowned for their excellence. Cruise cuisine is international, well-prepared, and cruises are, for many people, the only opportunity to experience 4 and 5-star dining.

Service: cruise personnel are trained like Pavlov’s dog to smile, pamper, and “Good morning!” every passenger, even certain WordPress music critics who occasionally write about Nazis. Many are from “compromised” circumstances, often from Third World countries. I marvel at their seeming absence of resentment toward privileged Americans with full bellies (like myself). But my cruise-expert wife says they probably feel fortunate to secure their cruise ship jobs, which offer far more lucrative opportunities than exist in their home countries. I’ll trust her on this. But it still bothers me.

Travel: cruises also offer the opportunity to, fairly affordably, visit exotic, often sunny locales: the Caribbean, Mediterranean, fiords of Scandinavia, South Pacific islands, Alaska, even Antarctica. These visits can be memorable, even if one has only a few hours to buy duty-free booze from impoverished descendants of African slaves.

Entertainment: entertainment on cruise ships spans everything from trivia contests in the lounge to music and comedy in the theatre. It is generally hit or miss, but probably hit more than miss. Our first cruise featured legendary, now-deceased comedian Marty Allen – 89 years old at the time – still chirping “Hello dere!” while assisted by his wife, who was half his age and twice as tall. My fourth cruise, on Princess Caribbean, had a surprise guest: producer Alan Parsons, who participated in a Q&A session along with quad-stereo songs by the Beatles, Pink Floyd, Hollies, Ambrosia, and his own Alan Parsons Project.

Piped-in music: cruise ships are also infamous for their omnipresent robotic pop noise. Since cruise companies aim to please everybody, they shoot for the lowest common denominator (LCD), which means the most crass and soulless pop crap on the planet. And the vessels all feel compelled to bombard you with endless variations of “Don’t Worry, Be Happy,” “Country Road,” and “Sweet Caroline” [though I still like the Neil Diamond number, despite its being hijacked by barking seals (“So Good! So Good!”)].

Buffet dining: this main food area is also problematic. Eating is one of life’s joys, but these very public and crowded places make me feel like a cow at a cattle trough. Just not a good feeling, and neither is the “glutton guilt” that seems to piggyback my existing depression. They are also crawling with germs. But maybe I shouldn’t worry about germs, as our Trump-appointed Secretary of Health and Human Services just informed us that he isn’t worried, because he “used to snort cocaine off of toilet seats.”

Ecological concerns: speaking of guilt, the biggest guilt trip? Cruises are the dirtiest vacations one can choose. (Prior to this last cruise, I made a donation to Sierra Club in hopes of lessening my guilt.) The vessels are veritable pollution factories and exceed even air travel for carbon footprint. First, there are the heavy fossil fuels needed to propel these saltwater monstrosities, which get larger and bulkier and more gaudy each year. While some of the more responsible cruise lines now use liquid natural gas (LNG) rather than diesel (the most eco-responsible, Hurtigruten of Norway, uses battery and advanced biofuel), even LNG produces poisonous methane.

A passenger, getting buzzed on Merlot before seeing Aretha Franklin (impersonator)

There is also the waste factor. That Princess Caribbean ship I earlier mentioned? Fined a record $40 million dollars – only the day before we sailed – for illegally dumping its waste into the ocean, then attempting to cover up the crime. Yes, there is evil in this world, and it ain’t only in Washington.

In conclusion: that’s the love/hate. Despite the few “love” aspects, once again I’ve sworn never to again board a cruise ship (unless possibly Hurtigruten). And once again, my lovely wife is saddened by that decision. Hopefully, this time, I can stick to my guns…either until I’m dead, or until governments finally get serious about much-needed independent regulation.

Sadly – sad for both me and the beautiful blue ball we call home – it will probably be the former.

***

If you’re American and would like to say a loud “Fuck You” to shithead and his Republican sycophants tonight, there’s a good alternative: this People’s State of the Union should prove more digestible, without the chest thumping, stupidity, and lies. Thanks.

Fascism For Beginners, Part 4: American Ambivalence (Repost)

/ greenpete58 / 8 Comments

(This is the closing essay in a series on fascism I originally wrote in 2017, not long after the start of the first Trump regime. I’m reproducing it here with a few edits. I drew heavily on William Shirer’s massive study, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich…especially the “rise” part.)

The receptive powers of the masses are very restricted, and their understanding is feeble…Such being the case, all effective propaganda must be confined to a few bare essentials and those must be expressed as far as possible in stereotyped formulas. These slogans should be persistently repeated until the very last individual has come to grasp the idea that has been put forward. – Adolf Hitler, from “Mein Kampf” (1925)

This is the last post in my series on fascism, specifically the German “Third Reich.” If you dropped in for the first time, you might want to start with the first post. What I’m trying to do here is understand how and why people expressed enthusiasm for Nazism, or were lulled into indifference, both inside and outside of Germany. A few of the reasons I’ve uncovered include post-World War I fatigue, the Great Depression, German Sonderweg, pre-existing anti-Semitism, and Adolf Hitler’s uncanny ability to practically hypnotize people with oratory and lies. The countries I’ve discussed (very briefly) include Germany, Russia, France, and England.

I’d now like to discuss my home country, America.

It’s true that America joined England, France, and, reluctantly, the Soviets in defeating the Nazis and liberating the concentration camps. And we did so, amazingly, while simultaneously waging a war with Japan. My beautiful mother-in-law likes to say (over and over), “If it wasn’t for our boys in that war, we’d all be speaking German.”

But as satisfying as it is to wave the flag, especially when we’ve emerged as victors, the buildup to war with Germany was more complicated.

***

When President Franklin D. Roosevelt died in April 1945, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill said “In FDR there died the greatest American friend we have ever known.”

The “Big Three” (Stalin, Roosevelt, and Churchill) at Tehran Conference in 1943. In addition to being allies, Roosevelt and Churchill were also good friends. Stalin… not so much.

Unlike his boss Woodrow Wilson during the First World War, Roosevelt was committed to assisting England from the moment it was attacked by Germany in 1940 (and even before). In 1937, he proposed quarantining warmongering countries like Germany and Italy. After Hitler invaded Poland in 1939, he extended military aid to Britain and France. And prior to the war’s end, he demanded unconditional surrender from Germany rather than armistice.

Until the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, which changed everything, Roosevelt’s great hurdle in assisting the Allies and bringing down Hitler was an isolationist sentiment that pervaded America. American citizens feared the bloodshed that they’d witnessed in the First World War. Additionally, wealthy capitalists feared communism, and viewed Hitler as a check against its spread. And, just as in Germany, there was an incessant paranoia (and, undoubtedly, envy) about consolidation of power by successful Jews.

The list that follows is just a smattering of groups and individuals that either unwittingly or actively tried to prevent America from assisting the European democracies in putting an end to Hitler and the Third Reich:

Henry Ford: From 1920-22, automobile entrepreneur Ford, one of the most powerful men in America, published an anti-Semitic set of booklets and pamphlets entitled “The International Jew,” warning of an increasing “Jewish menace.” His work caught the notice of a young Hitler.

Ford earned the dubious distinction of being the only American mentioned in Hitler’s 1925 blueprint for Nazism, “Mein Kampf.” And much later, SS chief Heinrich Himmler cited Ford as being “one of our most valuable, important, and witty fighters.” (Ed: fighting for what? Racism? Brutality against anyone considered weak?)

Henry Ford, dressed to the nines, accepting his gaudy Order of the German Eagle award, on his 75th birthday in 1936, the height of Nazism.

U.S. Congress: Even after Germany’s repeated violations of the Treaty of Versailles, politicians from both parties adhered to a policy of non-intervention. Congress passed three Neutrality Acts, from 1935 to 1937, to maintain American isolationism. This was all in the face of Mussolini invading northern Africa, General Francisco Franco and the Falangists (similar to Italy’s Fascisti) revolting against the republican Spanish government, and Hitler’s invasion of the Rhineland.

Charles Lindbergh: Americans adored the aviation hero. He flew solo across the Atlantic Ocean in the “Spirit of St. Louis,” and Americans suffered with him after his young son was murdered.

But Lindbergh possibly exceeded even Ford in both anti-Jewish and pro-Nazi activities. As a member of the isolationist America First Committee, he lobbied against U.S. intervention in Europe and openly defended Hitler’s military aggressions. In one infamous America First speech (60 years to the day before the Twin Towers fell), Lindbergh lectured Jewish groups in America, advising them that U.S. military intervention against Hitler would only hurt European Jews.

Some choice Lindbergh quotes:

(The) greatest danger to this country lies in (Jewish) large ownership and influence in our motion pictures, our press, our radio, and our government.

(Three groups are) pressing this country toward war: the British, the Jewish, and the Roosevelt administration.

We can have peace and security only so long as we band together to preserve that most priceless possession, our inheritance of European blood.

Hitler’s destruction would lay Europe open to the rape, loot, and barbarism of Soviet Russia’s forces, causing possibly the fatal wounding of western civilization.

Charles Lindbergh, pushing for non-intervention at an America First Committee rally. Roosevelt was quoted as saying “I am convinced Lindbergh is a Nazi.” (Imagine Trump saying something like this.) After FDR tagged Lindbergh as being a “defeatist and appeaser,” Lindbergh resigned from the U.S. Army Air Forces.

Lindbergh was a staunch believer in eugenics, and after the war, he fathered seven children by several mistresses to prove it. Like Ford, he received the Order of the German Eagle by the Nazi government. He accepted it from Hermann Goering at a dinner in October 1938. Several weeks later occurred Kristallnacht (Night of Broken Glass), the first anti-Jewish pogrom, carried out by Nazi SA troops and German citizens. Even after this, Lindbergh declined to return his award.

Breckinridge Long: Long was assistant secretary of state under Roosevelt. He directed anti-immigrant efforts that effectively barred Jews and others from attaining asylum in the states following their well-publicized persecution in Germany. As late as 1943, when the U.S. government had documented evidence of German atrocities against Jews, Long gave secret testimony before the House Foreign Affairs Committee that attempted to stifle revisions to harsh immigration policies.

(Maybe the most infamous example of indifference to the Jewish plight occurred in 1938, when the passenger ship St. Louis, loaded with over 900 Jews fleeing Europe, was refused entry at every American port. The ship eventually returned to Europe and unloaded these unfortunate exiles at Antwerp, Belgium… which shortly thereafter was enveloped in a swarm of cockroaches wearing jackboots and swastikas).

Joseph P. Kennedy Sr.: The patriarch of the Kennedy family, Joe Sr. amassed a fortune importing Scotch whisky, transacting real estate, merging film studios, and through insider trading on Wall Street. During his Hollywood tenure, he had a three-year affair with silent film star Gloria Swanson.

In 1938, he was appointed U.S. ambassador to Britain by President Roosevelt, an old friend. He must have made Roosevelt chew off his cigarette holder, because his sails definitely lacked the tack of Jack. He was right there with Neville Chamberlain during the Munich appeasement (see previous post). Then he tried to arrange a clandestine meeting with Hitler, about the same time as Kristallnacht. He argued against military aid to England, famously saying that “democracy is finished” there. He also bragged that he knew “more about the European situation than anyone else.”

Kennedy’s biographers cite numerous examples of his anti-Semitism, some of it confirmed in letters between Kennedy and his friend, Charles Lindbergh. After Roosevelt secured the Catholic vote and was re-elected in 1940, he fired Kennedy. (Imagine Trump firing a fellow incompetent racist.) Joe Sr. spent the rest of his life directing his energies toward his sons.

Arch-appeaser and British Ambassador, Joseph P. Kennedy Sr.

American Capitalists: Monetary greed is a characteristic of right-wing politics, and Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Mark Zuckerberg aren’t the first corporate titans to align themselves with an extremist leader. As I hinted above, certain American heads of industries were more concerned about Communists than Germans in the 1930s and early ’40s. They ran powerful businesses, and weren’t about to see their successes jeopardized by a “Red Menace,” which they felt a far right fascist like Hitler could help suppress.

But there was an even darker side. Many of these corporations did significant business in Hitler’s Germany. Ford Motor Company’s German branch, Ford-Werke, used French POWs as slave labor prior to the U.S. entering the war. Here are some others who nurtured a close relationship with the National Socialists:

James D. Mooney (President of General Motors Overseas): in 1938, Mooney received the Order of the German Eagle. In 1939 he met Nazi officials to discuss GM’s Adam-Opel facility in Germany. He arranged for a meeting between a Goering employee, one Helmut Wohlthat, and Joseph Kennedy, regarding exchanging loans for more open trading possibilities. Mooney resigned from GM after several leading American publications accused him of Nazi sympathies.

Thomas J. Watson Sr. (Chairman and CEO of IBM): in a book called “IBM and the Holocaust,” author Edwin Black argues that Watson willfully ignored Nazi persecution of Jews in a quest for profit. IBM manufactured a punch-card machine that was used by Nazis to tabulate and track Jews in Germany, and later to track inmates within the concentration camps. Watson’s IBM began its business relationship with the Nazis in 1933, the year the party consolidated its power (and established the first concentration camp, at Dachau). Nazi Germany soon became IBM’s biggest customer, right behind the U.S. In 1937, Watson attended an International Chamber of Commerce meeting in Berlin, where he accepted the Order of the German Eagle.

IBM founder, Thomas J. Watson Sr.

Torkild Rieber (Chairman of Texaco): Rieber illegally lent Texaco oil to Francisco Franco after Franco’s fascist uprising in Spain. He also traded oil with Nazi Germany for tankers. In June 1937, President Roosevelt met with him and threatened him with an oil embargo (imagine Trump threatening an oilman like this), but Rieber continued to do business with Germany in secret. After the start of the war, and despite a British embargo, Rieber arranged for Columbian oil to be shipped to the Nazis.

The day after France surrendered to Germany, on June 26, 1940, senior executives from Ford, GM, ITT, Texaco, and typewriter pioneer Underwood – including Rieber and Mooney – met with a German businessman and agent named Westrick at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City for a celebratory dinner.

 ***

Question: Before accepting their precious Order of the German Vulture awards, didn’t these obsessive capitalists bother to read Mein Kampf, written in 1925, which practically laid out everything Hitler and the National Socialists would do in the next 20 years, including extermination by poison gas? And if so, did they conveniently forget it while shaking hands with Hermann Goering?

Conclusion:

Trying to end this horror story appropriately is a struggle. It needs an apt moral, but it begs for someone better equipped than me to offer it. Just a few thoughts before this blog jumps back to 2026 America, and MAGA sloganeering, chest-thumping leaders, Big Lies, spin, nationalism, state-sponsored anti-immigration terrorism, murdering of protesters, invasions, voter indifference, etc, et al.

What happened in Europe from 1933 to 1945 was a horror unimaginable, and the millions who suffered and died deserve more than being a touchstone for today’s reprehensible politics. What happened there and then transcends politics. But while it shouldn’t be exploited, it should never be forgotten, either, and it serves as a dire warning to current events in America (and elsewhere). An understanding of history is extremely important. In my view, far too many people – including America’s current extremists in power – either lack that understanding, or have been corrupted beyond repair. At the risk of sounding like I’m lecturing, I’ll just offer this:

Whatever society, or whatever political persuasion, it’s important we not allow ideology – just as powerful as religion – to cloud our judgment, and that we elect good leaders who will nourish our humanity, not diminish it. Robert Louis Stevenson wrote a book called Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. The theme is that every human has the capacity within himself for both good and evil. Whether we submerge Hyde, or allow him to poke his head out occasionally… or strut around in broad daylight in full regalia… is up to us.

Sources:

“The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich” by William L. Shirer

“American History: A Survey” by Alan Brinkley

“The Kennedy’s at War: 1937-1945” by Edward J. Renehan Jr.

http://www.wikipedia.com

Fascism for Beginners, Part 3: Torpor (Repost)

/ greenpete58 / 5 Comments

[This is the third of a four-part series on fascism and the William Shirer book The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. I originally wrote it in 2017, not long after the start of the first Trump regime, but I added two paragraphs (italicized) referencing 2026 events.]

Our local public television station has been airing two excellent films lately, both related to fascist politics. One of them is the 1962 version of THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE, about American POWs hypnotized by Reds during the Korean War. There is much more to this brilliant movie, but if you haven’t already seen it, I won’t give things away.

The other is the 1961 film JUDGMENT AT NUREMBERG. It is loosely based on fact, and it concerns the post-WWII trial of four German judges who, under the tent of Nazism, helped carry out a sterilization program and sentenced innocent people to death.

One of the judges is a rabid Nazi who shows no remorse. Two of the judges are weak and confused. But the fourth judge, “Ernst Janning,” is a tragic figure.

Highly intelligent, respected both inside and outside of Germany for his judicial knowledge, Janning is a man of great ideals who holds himself above his less enlightened peers. But during the Hitler years, he slowly and inexorably became corrupted. He despises what the Nazis did, but he also despises himself. He is tormented by the knowledge that, because of his actions, he’s turned his entire life into “excrement.”

The defense attorney wages an admirable but futile battle to exonerate Janning, a hero of his. At one point, American prosecutors show film footage of liberation of the concentration camps. (This is actual footage, and it’s not for the squeamish.) The defense attorney becomes so desperate, he tries to justify the judges’ actions by blaming other nations and individuals for Germany’s descent into barbarism.

***

Military hegemony and glorification are characteristics of fascist regimes. America’s recent invasion of Venezuela could very well be a taste test of further aggressions, and the megalomaniac in the White House has already – characteristically – dropped hints of further abuses of U.S. military power. Some shortsighted corners of the globe have even applauded the unilateral U.S. invasion of Venezuela, based on the fact that Nicolás Maduro was a repressive autocrat (though, as opposed to Trump, of a left rather than right-wing flavor).

While Trump’s human rights outrages (ICE terrorism, calling neo-Nazis “good people” after Charlottesville, his “Big Beautiful Bill” stripping healthcare for millions, executive orders that criminalize the homeless) may not yet approach the scale of Maduro’s, those who cheer him know not what they do. For, as with everything, there are precedents and consequences. Here, I’d like to discuss some accomplices to Nazi Germany’s military aggressions; they figure largely in William Shirer’s book The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich.

Joseph Stalin

Russia: In April 1945, the first troops to enter bombed-out Berlin were the Russians, hated by both Hitler and the Western democracies. (Joseph Stalin was as fascistic as Hitler or Mussolini, just a different political stripe.) Had not the Russians repelled German forces at Stalingrad in 1942-43 – maybe the bloodiest confrontation in the history of man – the war would have had a different outcome. But in August 1939, Hitler and Stalin had signed the Nazi-Soviet Pact. This treaty enabled the two dictatorships to mutually carve up Poland and Eastern Europe.

Stalin was as brutal, cunning, and power-obsessed as Hitler. He just didn’t share Hitler’s pathological theories on race. Stalin’s great mistake was that, like so many others, he trusted Hitler. But Hitler despised Communism almost as much as Judaism, and he ridiculed the Pact from the moment it was signed. Thus, it wasn’t surprising when, against his top generals’ advice, Hitler invaded Russia in June 1941. Stalin’s uncharacteristic coziness with Hitler during the Pact allowed the Germans to build their military and expand their territory for a period of two long years.

The result: hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians, Jews, Bolsheviks, and resistance fighters in the East were ultimately rounded up and exterminated by Nazi Einsatzgruppen.

Nazi “Einsatzgruppen” executing a Ukrainian Jewish mother and her child (whom she’s clutching to her chest). This 1942 photo was never intended for distribution, but was somehow smuggled outside the Nazi sphere.

France: France had an opportunity to stop Hitler early on. On March 7, 1936, German forces illegally broke the 1925 Locarno Treaty and entered the demilitarized zone in the French Rhineland. Author Shirer was present when Hitler made the announcement to the German Reichstag, and recorded in his diary the disgusting scene that follows:

All the militarism in their German blood surges to their heads… Their hands are raised in slavish salute, their faces now contorted with hysteria, their mouths wide open, shouting, shouting, their eyes, burning with fanaticism, glued on the new god, the Messiah.

Had the French stood up to this blatant act of aggression, it would have rendered Hitler weak and unreliable in the eyes of Germans, and possibly shortened the reign of the Third Reich. In 1936, the German army was not the juggernaut it later became. Additionally, army Commander-in-Chief Werner von Blomberg had already decided on retreat in case of French countermeasures. But France had been devastated by the previous war and was “paralyzed by internal strife” and “sinking into defeatism.” Hitler’s military coup in the Rhineland set the stage for similar maneuvers in Austria and Czechoslovakia, and ultimately the invasion of Poland.

Neville Chamberlain

Great Britain: under the terms of the Locarno Treaty, Great Britain was obligated to assist France after Germany’s invasion of the Rhineland. Instead, it incomprehensibly believed Hitler when he assured the European democracies that he only desired peace, and that his actions weren’t hostile. Then, in 1938, Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain brokered with Hitler the Munich Agreement, which allowed Germany to annex parts of Czechoslovakia (this after allowing the Nazis to force an Anschluss and annex Austria, creating a “Greater (Nazi) Germany”).

Chamberlain’s continued appeasement of Hitler was greeted with huge approval by British citizens and Parliament, since it prevented outright war (although succeeding Prime Minister Winston Churchill remained highly critical). In reality, it merely delayed the inevitable, for it permitted Germany to strengthen its armed forces and opened the door for Hitler to invade Poland, which officially started World War II. Soon, Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands, Belgium, and France also toppled to the Germans.

Many of those same British who applauded the Munich Agreement would soon be huddling in bomb shelters while the German Luftwaffe roared overhead.

***

There’s one other “accomplice” I’d like to talk about. But I’ll wait until the fourth and final installment of “Fascism for Beginners” to discuss my home country.

(Header image: detail from the “Hell Panel” from “Garden of Earthly Delights” by Hieronymous Bosch)